MONROE, Mich. (AP) — Competing in a bass fishing tournament two years ago, Todd Steele cast his rod from his 21-foot motorboat — unaware that he was being poisoned by thick, green scum on western Lake Erie.
Driving home to Port Huron, Michigan, the semipro angler felt lightheaded, nauseous. By the next morning, he was too dizzy to stand, his overheated body covered with painful hives.
Pungent, sometimes toxic blobs are fouling waterways from the Great Lakes to Chesapeake Bay, from the Snake River in Idaho to New York’s Finger Lakes and reservoirs in California’s Central Valley.